But I'll still wear the T-shirts

So anyone who knows me basically knows that I am an absolute, beyond the pale, insanely fanatical follower of any and all things having to do with Superman. If you've met me in person, or been to my apartment, or talked to me for any length of time, this is probably obvious. As obsessions go, it's a gentle and lifelong one. I am no latecomer to this. Keep in mind that, in the months leading up to this, I have gotten a little teary-eyed just watching the movie trailers ("They can be a great people, Kal-El, they wish to be... they only lack the light to show them the way..." Ah, it gets me every time).

So I am not speaking off the cuff or without a lot of consideration when I say (and sad I am to have to admit it) that I really, um, was not so taken with the latest installment in the ill-fated Superman movie franchise, Superman Returns.

I'll start by saying I think they definitely made the right casting choice with Brandon Routh. He really surprised me - he managed to inhabit the big shoes left by Chris Reeve and add his own touches as well. So he kept the right "feel" to maintan continutiy with the earlier franchise, but brought his own dignity and goofiness to the Superman/Clark Kent personae. Plus he looks great in the suit. Better than Reeve did (or George Reeves, for that matter).

However, in terms of the story, this felt very much like Superman I - meaning that the character depth and story were pretty flat all around. Worse, many of the "gee whiz" aspects of the story were reminiscent of Superman III (and the never to be mentioned fourth installment). There were lots of plot gaps, and Lex Luthor still comes of as a farce - even with Kevin Spacey in the role. Really. This is the arch enemy of Superman? Hardly.

At nearly two and a half hours, it amazed me that so little was actually said, and so many huge plot holes were left gaping (and some pretty deep messing with the mythology. Supes is basically an absentee father [??!?!] in this installment. He and Lois have apparently had intimate relations, and a relationship [which is not a problem - that has precedent], but when they meet again on the roof of the daily planet, it is as stiff and formal as a tax audit. Weird.)

So, the sad thing is, it's trying really hard to be Spider Man 2, and failing. It should have aspired to Superman II instead.

(and I'm not even going to get into the goldmine of character development, nuance, and mythology they basically tossed away by choosing to ignore the entirety of the last five seasons of Smallville. Really. In light of that whole corpus, the thought of playing Lex Luthor for laughs is just ludicrous. Finally we might get to see him for the scary and tyrannical mastermind he is, with an actor the calibre of Kevin Spacey, no less, and they go trying to make him a bad Gene Hackman copy [and even Gene Hackman should have been allowed to play the role much darker, and could have brilliantly. In both cases, I blame the directors]. Luther's 'master plans' come across as poorly executed science projects. What the HELL people?)

It is sad to say that, with so many years and such good mythology to work from, the earliest Superman movies are still the best Superman movies. On the balance, though, I'll still stick with Smallville. Somebody over in Vancouver seems to be paying attention to the important stuff.

If they decide to make yet another Superman movie, holding on to Brandon Routh and scrapping the screenwriters and perhaps also (though I'm sad to say it, given his excellent work on the X-Men films) Bryan Singer, I'll probably go see it, because that's the kind of guy I am. But my confidence in this franchise is shaken. I'll admit it.

I've still got my DVD box sets and the comic books and old radio shows, though. And yeah, you'll still see me in those t-shirts.

Doc at the Radar Station

So I am like many people in this world in that I have certain irrational fears. Phobias. Yeah.

Phobias, by their very nature, are a bit strange. You get a low-grade anxiety attack from, say, spiders. Being in high places makes you woozy. You can't stand to touch cotton balls. These are all fears that have no basis in anything objectively threatening (at least not threatening in that moment of fear, per se) and yet drive those of us who have them to distraction and avoidance.

Well, yes. I am phobic. I have a set of these fears as well. Most of them are standard issue. I am afraid of heights (and the vertigo can get pretty bad, which made my stint working with Outward Bound interesting), and I am mildly claustrophobic. I really don't like talking about blood. As abnormal fears go, these are pretty normal, I imagine.

But folks sometimes have a second set of these things - like the cotton example above. I've known two people with that cotton phobia. They can't open aspirin bottles by themselves. Think about it. Some phobias are so common that we don't knock them - the heights one, for example. But when you are afraid of cotton, I imagine sometimes you get some funny looks.

I feel their pain. I, myself, have a peculiar phobia that gets me funny looks and into funny situations.

I'm radiophobic, you see.

No. This is not an irrational fear of lite-rock FM stations (though perhaps there should be a fear like that) nor of common household appliances descended from Marconi and Tesla's early recievers.

Nope. Radiophobia is an irrational fear of things like X-ray machines and nuclear power plants (though irrational here is not meant to mean ignorant - though that is often a confusion. There is much maligning of "radiophobia" as a knee-jerk antipathy to nuclear things on the part of an uniformed public. That is not what I am talking about. I am talking about a genuine phobia here - a real condition that apparently I share with the likes of Thomas Alva Edison and many others).

Now it should be noted that there are plenty of reasonable and rational fears of these things - what with Chernobyl and dirty bomb threats and the like. With reasonable fears you can take reasonable precautions, and minimize risks to safe levels such that normal life can continue, well, you know, normally.

But (and trust me on this one), there is nothing like an unreasonable fear of X-ray machines to make you aware of just how many unsympathetic dental hygenists there are in the world.

The dialogue ususaly goes something like this:

"Um. I know this might sound crazy, but i'm really uncomfortable sitting here with the X-ray machine turned on. Could it be turned off while I'm here?"

"It's not firing. It won't hurt you."

"I realize it's not firing. I realize it won't hurt me. I'm sorry. It has nothing to do with that. It has everything to do with it being in the room and being turned on. I just have a fear of X-ray machines."

"But it's totally safe," she says, the look of incomprehension starting.

"I have no doubt of that. That actually isn't the point. The point," I say, anxiety building, "is that I am just... afraid... of it."

And as you might expect, this dialogue rapidly goes nowhere, largely for the fact that dental hygenists are, to a fault, a very by-the-numbers sort of population (think about it - you clean teeth every day. These folks have a low need for out-of-routine circumstances). It follows that they would try to reassure me with by-the-numbers rational arguments of safety and the like.

The point is is that this is a phobia, and reasoning with me just does not help. I'm sorry.

Now, before you get the wrong idea - I do not completely collapse in a heap there in the examination room. I do manage to survive with the machine on (they are rarely willing to de-energize it), and I even manage to occasionally get an x-ray done when I am assured that they are absolutely necessary. But it does bring on a low-grade panic attack, and I have just learned to live with that.

The phobia is interesting to observe, though. I think because of it I am more aware (hyper aware) of radiation sources we encounter in our daily lives than the average person. Dentist's offices and airports are obvious. But I notice smoke detectors, and the wicks on gas lamps, and certain areas of the college campus I live near - because I know that each of these is a source of (largely unnoticed) radiaton exposure. And I avoid them. Or, if I can't avoid them, I live with it and just have my blood pressure go up a bit.

What put this in my mind is the fact that, because of this odd phobia of mine, I have an obsessive knowledge of radioactive things. I know way too much about how atom bombs and reactors work. I could probably name off the top of my head at least five dozen nuclear accidents or contaminations from the last forty years (at least one of which happened near my old home in Decatur, GA), and I will never ever go picking up scrap metal (just trust me on this one). And as with any true paranoid obsession, the combination of the fear and the knowledge means that, for whatever reason, the universe never ceases to delight in having fun with me about this.

So, for example, my first girlfriend, after our first kiss, was talking to me about her family and her life and she was talking about her father and saying he had a weird job and I said, "Well, at least he doesn't work at a nuclear power plant or anything..."

But, in fact, he did.

And I have in fact had three realtionships with people somehow connected by family to the nuclear industry (all of which I would find out after I got involved with them. it's not like I go looking for this). Needless to say, family visits were not a high point in those affairs.

And so yesterday (this is really what brought it to mind) I was getting my hair cut, and the stylist and I were making conversation. AndI asked how long he had been cutting hair. Not too long. Oh, what did you do before this?

"I was a health physicist in the nuclear industry."

Aha.

So we had a very good conversation, in which I was able to employ some of my obsessive knowledge. I asked about, among other things, whether the Cherenkov effect is as beautiful in real life as it seems to be in the pictures (it is); whether it is scary to stand that close to an operating nuclear reactor (it is). He was pleased to realize I knew quite a bit about his job. I was less pleased to realize that, in some ways, I knew just as much about his job as he did, and occasionally more.

"So why are you cutting hair?"

His first answer had a lot to do with changes in the industry, about restructuring and outsourcing and downsizing. And I took that at face value. it wasn't until near the end of the conversation (and the haircut) that I got the rest of the story.

"Thank goodness, " I said, "it sounds like you were pretty safe, and never had any trouble."

"Well, actually, when I was working my last job," he said (and he named the plant, and a part of my brain suddenly went "oops" and I got very quiet), "they were a bit lax, and several of us got exposed to iodine and thorium isotopes. So they sent me home for a few months, and then I got the letter about not coming back. I don't like to think about it. I joke sometimes that I probably glow inside, or that I got cancers I don't know about. Though I don't imagine that's really something to joke about."

It's one thing to read about something. It is something else to meet someone who has lived through somehing you have read about. Those are two different things.

So yeah, I have a soft place in my heart for the cotton-phobes of the world, because, like me, they have an irrational fear. And strange phobias are pretty funny. But there are also points when the irrationality of a fear begins to shake hands with the reasonableness of being afraid, and at such moments (I shout from the rooftops to the dental hygenists of the world) I don't imagine it's really something to joke about.

Marching to the Ocean, Marching to the Sea

Douglas Copeland called it the notion of the "poverty jet set" - the overeducated folks who work McJobs in order to have the money and freedom to (as often as possible) jump ship, skip town, and junket to exotic locales. For better or worse, the ultimate McJob might in fact be graduate school.

At least, that is the way it seems from a distance.

The reality (as reality often is) is far more complex. Take me, for example. I really haven't taken a 'vacation' in probably ten years, but one might reasonably argue that my whole life is, in fact, one big goof off session. Seriously: I occasionally write, I eat very well, I sleep (sometimes), I watch a lot of episodes of the X-Files.

What is there to get away from?

And yet, recently I was graced witht he chance to get away from my life in Nashville; to take a vacation from my goof-off life of graduate studies and really goof off. To go, in short, to the beach. And I went. And it was wonderful.

I was not alone. Making the fifteen-or-so-hour trip with me was my intrepid companion and fellow gung-ho Catholic, Burt. We burned our way across Tennessee and then took on the wilds of Virginia in a rage of driving and loud music and really good conversation. I kept saying "we must be at least half way there by now!" and Burt would just calmly shake his head no and consult the map. It was (from the standpoint of driving) insane, but (from the standpoint of one's relation to life and the universe) a good position to be in. If the trip is insanely long, you might as well enjoy it. [There's a life lesson in there.]

Okay. And the beach was fantastic. We were in two houses on a private beach on the Chesapeake Bay. To get there, you had to drive northwest from Virginia Beach - over a long long bridge that had tunnels that went underwater (cool and scary). We arrived at like 4:30 in the morning and so didn't get a good look at the place until the next day. I have to say, it was truly perfect. Being in the bay, the waves never got terribly high, and the tides were mild for the most part (there was one day whe several folks got marooned on a sandbar, but that might have had more to do with the alcohol levels than the water levels). The one thing I missed was body surfing, but that was a small price to pay. The water was warm at good times and cool at good times, and I had fun wading and swimming.

Did I mention that while I was at the beach my car rolled over to an amazing 200,000 miles on the odometer? This is, I think, some sort of karmic justice (as if I believed in karma, as if I believed in justice. But still). This is, you see, the second Nissan Sentra I have owned in my life. The last one (from mid highschool to mid-college) was a lemon. This one, Lord bless it, is a peach. It runs and runs and runs, despite being old and looking like baked - over Hell. I call it the Grey Ghost, my car, but it also reminds one of the Energizer Bunny.


So the car and the beach were fantastic, but I cannot neglect to mention the people, as well. Shane, Virginia, Jimmy, Burt, Katy, Heather, as well as Melissa, Luke, and Lindsay (who came down from D.C.) shared laughs, got drunk (repeatedly), played card games and made merry in the surf and the sea. It was good to be among friends old and new, away from the cares of Nashville, and inebriated with sand between my toes. (Oh, and at night, the stars. My goodness, the stars).

I was gone just long enough to be ready to come back. A perfect vacation, and a wonderful time.

A Reflection on Romans 16:18

For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple. [KJV]

I don’t know if you ever listened to punk rock. I did, and do today as well. For over two decades I’ve been listening to the music and going—sometimes at ungodly hours and in some ungodly parts of town—to small old warehouses or old buildings (generally referred to as “clubs” or, more neutrally, “venues”) so I could have my eardrums pounded flat by yet another series of bands. On the whole I find it an enjoyable activity, and it keeps me in touch with my wilder, younger self now that I am a slower, older person. During this decade (and then some) I have observed some things that relate to the passage from Romans above.

In 1989 an Atlanta club like the Metroplex was not a smart place for a seventeen-year-old to be. Forget the fact that I’m larger than average. That didn’t matter. There was such a variety of unknowns—unknown people, unknown temperaments, unknown substances fueling unknown angers—that size, strength, or desire to get along peacefully with everyone else were not always relevant. I was, however, aware of the risk, and had identified some good places within the club to avoid.

Chief among these was “the pit”. A pit at a punk club is the area directly in front of the stage, where the volume is loudest and the density of people is usually the highest. You might have heard of “slam dancing” (also known as “moshing”)—the practice of people gyrating and careening into one another in response to the emotional tenor of the music and the moment. This would occur in the pit during the more frenzied portions of a show, along with an activity called stage diving.

The stage divers were a breed apart. Sometimes they were drunk or stoned out of their minds, or perhaps they just got caught up in the excitement of the moment. They would (somehow) manage to get up on stage with the performers, linger a moment there before the bouncers caught up with them, and then they would take a running leap off the stage into the empty space above the heart of the pit.

I stayed on the fringes of the clubs, more as observer than participant. This allowed me some opportunity to reflect on these strange goings-on. Of course, from the outside, the pit of a club appears the most lawless, violent, crazy place on earth. And there were occasions when the violence was there and genuine. But what I saw, for the most part, was a bizarre form of community.

Those in the pit sought catharsis, to be sure. They were pursuing a sort of Dionysian release that comes from risking life and limb. What was less apparent—but still very present—was camaraderie. Community.

When a punker dived off the stage, the pit would surge together, en masse, with arms raised and catch him (or her. Usually him). The diver would be held aloft, “surfing” the crowd until there was an opportunity to come down. Similarly, when a slam dancer fell in the midst of a mosh, arms would shoot down and set him upright again. There were bruises and scrapes, but not brawling and malice (for the most part). To an outsider, the pit seems like chaos, but it’s more like the ideal of anarchy: folks looking out for each other in a space beyond rules.

Now I’m older. The clubs are older, too. Punk has been absorbed into the mainstream, and the kids I see at shows now are several generations away from the scenes of ten years ago. They’re cleaner, hipper, and more sedate. Or maybe they’re just terminally bored.

The boredom shows. Not many pits in the clubs anymore. The shows these days are more like TV, with the audience passively consuming. Even at shows where the band is on fire and you can feel the energy in the air, the kids remain aloof. They’re too cool to bump into each other, maybe. Or maybe they’ve never learned how to yearn for catharsis.

At a show once back in 1999 I watched as a lone stage diver braved the bouncers, streaked across the stage, and leapt into what, twenty years ago, would have been the outstretched arms of the pit. Instead of surging forward, the crowd drew back, and he hit the concrete floor full-force.

Welcome to the America of the New Millenium. You jump and nobody catches you.

The point here is that civility and safety are not necessarily or ultimately one and the same. The pits of a decade ago evoked a weird community that looked out for its members. That concern is lacking in the “safer” shows of the late ‘90’s and early 'oughts. In the pits of the Reagan years arms flailed outstretched, and hence available to assist others who had fallen in the fray. Here in the new century, the crowd stands with arms folded, avoiding the possibility of touch as much as possible. A group of individuals but not the community I observed in years past.

Pits—and churches—can be risky places. They should be. A community that risks together can learn to care for itself in a way that a collection of individuals merely occupying the same space cannot.

Punk rock is not equivalent to the Gospel, of course. But I think the enemy of each was the same: a belly-ruled quietism that prizes comfort over risk, and safety of self over welfare of others. This is the very voice of the status-quo, of anesthesia, and it makes for lame churches and lame shows.

Categories: theology, musings